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Home > Archive > Data Storage > September 2004 > Configuring Boot from SAN (Emulex/EMC/Win2K)
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| Author |
Configuring Boot from SAN (Emulex/EMC/Win2K)
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| ohaya 2004-09-22, 10:29 pm |
| Hi,
I just began trying to configure a PC with an Emulex LP9002 HBA to boot
from an EMC CX700. The PC works with the SAN now, when its booted off
the internal hard drive, but I'm a bit confused about getting this boot
configuration working.
Right now, I'm kind of stuck getting the Win2K setup to see the LUN on
the SAN so that I can install Win2K onto the LUN.
I've been following an Emulex/EMC document called "win.pdf", and have
gone into the HBA BIOS configuration when I got the "Press <Alt E>",
during booting, and set the LUN, etc.
One of the things that I'm confused about is "enabling the BIOS". As I
mentioned above, I did the "Alt E" configuration, and enabled BIOS
there, but the document also talks about using LP6DUTIL and enabling the
BIOS. Are these (the 'Alt E' and the LP6DUTIL just two different ways
to enable the BIOS, or do I have to do both?
The reason I'm asking is now, when I boot the PC, I see:
"Installing Emulex BIOS"
then a line with info about the LUN, etc.
then "Emulex BIOS not installed"
Thanks,
Jim
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| Rene Koehnen-Wiesemes 2004-09-23, 9:26 am |
| Well, you might have the wrong firmware installed. Emulex let you download
different versions of firmware from their site. Insite these firmware
versions
are binary files of firmware with and without boot-BIOS support. Check
their documentation for the exact binary file name you should flash.
Rene
ohaya wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I just began trying to configure a PC with an Emulex LP9002 HBA to boot
> from an EMC CX700. The PC works with the SAN now, when its booted off
> the internal hard drive, but I'm a bit confused about getting this boot
> configuration working.
>
> Right now, I'm kind of stuck getting the Win2K setup to see the LUN on
> the SAN so that I can install Win2K onto the LUN.
>
> I've been following an Emulex/EMC document called "win.pdf", and have
> gone into the HBA BIOS configuration when I got the "Press <Alt E>",
> during booting, and set the LUN, etc.
>
> One of the things that I'm confused about is "enabling the BIOS". As I
> mentioned above, I did the "Alt E" configuration, and enabled BIOS
> there, but the document also talks about using LP6DUTIL and enabling the
> BIOS. Are these (the 'Alt E' and the LP6DUTIL just two different ways
> to enable the BIOS, or do I have to do both?
>
> The reason I'm asking is now, when I boot the PC, I see:
>
> "Installing Emulex BIOS"
>
> then a line with info about the LUN, etc.
>
> then "Emulex BIOS not installed"
>
> Thanks,
> Jim
--
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**** Complex Systems tend to fail in complex ways ****
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| Hi Rene,
The good news is: I was able to get it working!
The bad news is: I don't know what I did differently to get it
working...
What happened is that when I went into the office this morning, I was
stepping through the procedures while showing a colleague what I had
tried. Then, when I rebooted the system, boy was I amazed that the PC
actually found the LUN and let me install Win2K3  !!!
The only strange thing is that this PC that I chose as my first 'victim'
is an HP desktop, and its (the system's) BIOS doesn't include an option
to boot directly off of the D: drive, which is the LUN on the SAN, but I
did get the screen listing:
Win2K3 Server
Win2K Pro (the original, on the hard drive)
If I chose Win2K3, the system would boot up to Win2K3, and it looks like
it's running off the D: drive (again, which is on the SAN). Windows
directory, pagefile, etc. are all on the D: drive.
If I chose Win2K Pro, the system would boot to Win2K Pro, and is running
off the C: drive.
I guess it's not often the people want to boot desktops off of SAN, so
the system BIOS doesn't have an option for "boot from FC" or "Other", so
I have to boot to the NTLDR on the real drive, which then boots to the
SAN LUN.
Very strange experience !!
I'm now moving on to a different system, and IBM blade with (apparently)
a QLogic QL2312 dual-port HBA. I've moved the LUN that I was using in
my earlier testing (LUN 0) to a new Storage Group that I created on the
SAN with the blade as a 'host', and today, we've been struggling with
this new configuration trying to get it to find the SAN LUN.
Right now, I'm having a somewhat similar problem. When we boot the
blade, I see some messages then it says "ROM BIOS not installed".
I've been doing some research, and I found a QLogic document that SEEMS
to be saying that some SYSTEMS BIOSes will supercede the HBA boot BIOS,
i.e., that you have to set something in the SYSTEMS BIOS to tell it to
use the FC HBA to boot, or it'll basically ignore the boot BIOS on the
HBA. These documents call it "selectable boot".
If anyone has any info on this I'd appreciate any comments/suggestions.
Jim
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| spiegela@gmail.com 2004-09-24, 5:45 pm |
| I've set up IBM blades to boot from the Clariion and Symm before, and
it worked fine. I don't remember all of the menus off hand, but these
are the steps I used (I think):
1. Enter the q-logic BIOS
2. Select the HBA you've zoned, and enable it.
3. Specify the maximum number of LUNs
4. Scan the HBA for devices
5. Select the device that shows up. This is a "dummy" LUN that the
Clariion displays when no other LUNs are available to the host.
6. Select that LUN in the device setup menu, and check it
At this point the host will show up in the Clariion "Connectivity
Status..." Menu
7. Register the host manually in Navisphere
8. Add devices and host to storage group.
9. Scan for devices in q-logic BIOS again.
Now you should see only the devices in the storage group with the host
10. Ensure that the discovered devices are the correct size
That's it.
HTH
Aaron Spiegel
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|
"spiegela@gmail.com" wrote:
>
> I've set up IBM blades to boot from the Clariion and Symm before, and
> it worked fine. I don't remember all of the menus off hand, but these
> are the steps I used (I think):
>
> 1. Enter the q-logic BIOS
> 2. Select the HBA you've zoned, and enable it.
> 3. Specify the maximum number of LUNs
> 4. Scan the HBA for devices
> 5. Select the device that shows up. This is a "dummy" LUN that the
> Clariion displays when no other LUNs are available to the host.
> 6. Select that LUN in the device setup menu, and check it
>
> At this point the host will show up in the Clariion "Connectivity
> Status..." Menu
>
> 7. Register the host manually in Navisphere
> 8. Add devices and host to storage group.
> 9. Scan for devices in q-logic BIOS again.
>
> Now you should see only the devices in the storage group with the host
>
> 10. Ensure that the discovered devices are the correct size
> That's it.
>
Aaron,
Thanks! We just got our 1st two working this afternoon.
I think the reason for the problem with the 1st one was that when we
created the new "host" in the Navisphere Connectivity Status window, we
put the WWNN and WWPN backwards from what it should hae been. Once we
got that fixed, and rebooted the blade, the QLogic displayed the LUN and
RAID status during boot.
Question: We kind of lucked out on figuring out that WWNN/WWPN thing,
but I'm still looking for some "enlightenment". I know that I can get
the WWPN from both the HBA BIOS config and from the FC switch web
interface, but where are we suppose to get the WWNN? In our case, we
literally just GUESSED that it was the same as the WWPN, but with
different 2 digits at the front, but there's got to be a more definitive
way to find it?
Another question: When you set up the host in Navisphere, why does it
ask you for the hostname and IP address (the OK button stays grayed out
until you fill those in)?
Why does the SAN need to know the host IP address?
In our case, we put in a kind of 'dummy' IP address, e.g., the IP of the
blade management module, which seemed to work, but I'm still curious why
the SAN needs the host's IP address.
Jim
| |
| spiegela@gmail.com 2004-09-26, 5:47 pm |
| If the WWNN isn't in the adapter BIOS, you probably won't be able to
see it without the card's management software. I'm not sure what
software QLogic makes available, tho. The difference between the WWPN
and WWNN should be pretty consistent within that vendor's cards-- so
you can continue to guess . The easiest way, IMHO, is to connect up
to the SAN first, and use that method I described.
As to the reason why Navisphere wants the IP and hostname: some hosts
that you'll register manually, you'll later want to load the Navisphere
agent; if you do, when that host goes to connect, Navisphere will
already know which HBA goes with that host. For hosts that you know
you won't be loading the agent on, a dummy IP is fine, but for hosts
that you will be loading the agent on later, the correct IP is probably
better-- tho it won't affect the host's connection to its disks through
the SAN.
Aaron
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|
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| Aaron,
Thanks. I think I'm getting it. Comments interspersed below...
Jim
"spiegela@gmail.com" wrote:
>
> If the WWNN isn't in the adapter BIOS, you probably won't be able to
> see it without the card's management software. I'm not sure what
> software QLogic makes available, tho. The difference between the WWPN
> and WWNN should be pretty consistent within that vendor's cards-- so
> you can continue to guess . The easiest way, IMHO, is to connect up
> to the SAN first, and use that method I described.
Since the whole point is that we're trying to get this configured to
boot from the SAN, the blade is just bare metal to begin with (no
drives, no OS), so I don't think we can run anything from QLogic except
whatever is in their HBA's BIOS, and it looks like the only thing you
get from the HBA BIOS is the WWPN associated with each of the HBA's two
FC ports.
I've read somewhere that the WWNN for "THE HBA CARD" is suppose to be
labelled somewhere on the HBA, but since these HBAs are buried inside
the blade, we'd have to pop each blade out and open them up to look at
the HBA.
I guess if we were putting a regular HBA into a regular PC, we could pop
the HBA card out, or the WWNN might be labelled on the end of the card,
but there isn't an exposed faceplate on these HBAs.
So I guess that we're left to guessing the WWNN for the HBAs. I think
as long as we stick with QLogic HBAs, the guessing of the WWNN from the
WWPN should be consistent, i.e., replace the 1st couple of digits of the
WWPN to get the HBA's WWNN.
> As to the reason why Navisphere wants the IP and hostname: some hosts
> that you'll register manually, you'll later want to load the Navisphere
> agent; if you do, when that host goes to connect, Navisphere will
> already know which HBA goes with that host. For hosts that you know
> you won't be loading the agent on, a dummy IP is fine, but for hosts
> that you will be loading the agent on later, the correct IP is probably
> better-- tho it won't affect the host's connection to its disks through
> the SAN.
Ok, thanks for the clarification.
Jim
| |
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| /dev/null 2004-09-26, 5:47 pm |
|
ohaya Wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I just began trying to configure a PC with an Emulex LP9002 HBA to
> boot
> from an EMC CX700. The PC works with the SAN now, when its booted off
> the internal hard drive, but I'm a bit confused about getting this
> boot
> configuration working.
>
> Right now, I'm kind of stuck getting the Win2K setup to see the LUN on
> the SAN so that I can install Win2K onto the LUN.
>
> I've been following an Emulex/EMC document called "win.pdf", and have
> gone into the HBA BIOS configuration when I got the "Press <Alt E>",
> during booting, and set the LUN, etc.
>
> One of the things that I'm confused about is "enabling the BIOS". As
> I
> mentioned above, I did the "Alt E" configuration, and enabled BIOS
> there, but the document also talks about using LP6DUTIL and enabling
> the
> BIOS. Are these (the 'Alt E' and the LP6DUTIL just two different ways
> to enable the BIOS, or do I have to do both?
>
> The reason I'm asking is now, when I boot the PC, I see:
>
> "Installing Emulex BIOS"
>
> then a line with info about the LUN, etc.
>
> then "Emulex BIOS not installed"
>
>
> Thanks,
> Jim
Hi
Don't know exactly, but make sure, you use the EMC Firmware for the
LP9002. I don't know, what is different with this "special" firmware,
but there must be something other than "tested by EMC", or at least,
I'd assume.
find it here: 'Emulex EMC Firmware'
(http://www.emulex.com/ts/docoem/framemc.htm)
Rgds.
/dev/null
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